


you're a canary, i'm a coal mine

by vvesninski



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: F/F, this is mostly carol and her experience as a lesbian it only gets a tiny bit shippy at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 12:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15707217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvesninski/pseuds/vvesninski
Summary: A dyke is a dyke, after all, whether she's wearing jeans or a navy uniform.





	you're a canary, i'm a coal mine

**Author's Note:**

> title from i've got all this ringing in my ears and none on my fingers by fall out boy

It took her a while to realise. Barb and her continuous string of boyfriends, each almost identical to the last, tall and dark haired and oh-so-in love with her, were paraded in front of Carol non-stop. The boys were always in the house, in the room she shared with her sister, waiting at the bus stop, all because they wanted Barb. They loved her. And Carol wanted love.

Well, not love, necessarily. She wanted to do what Barb managed so effortlessly, to keep someone wrapped around her little finger, ready to do her bidding. Carol watched all the boys at school, analysing and attentive, but none of them ever seemed like _the one._ She was sixteen years old now, young and lonely and full of rage. Where was the boy who should be hers?

“I can’t believe you’re sixteen and you’ve never had a boyfriend,” a girl in her History class said, “what are you, a fucking dyke?”

Carol thought she’d been punched in the gut.

It was easier than she expected it to be, falling into her cycle of wickedness. Her parents hated The Queers, so it wasn’t difficult to become one. Carol realised that she was good at searching out the girls who were hiding something. Sometimes it was obvious from the way they dressed, other times she knew from the way they spoke to people, how they held their bodies up tall. They always spoke with their bodies, not their words. _I am different_ , they whispered to her, _I am like you_. She would take them by the hand, lead them to her secret space, and they followed because they recognised something in her, too. And between the touches and the kisses and the bruises she left, they became hers.

It never lasted too long. Carol was looking for lust, never attachment. She would keep a girl for a month or two, but as soon as she heard _the L word_ she moved on. She didn’t want love, she wanted power, and being a dyke was her power. She could keep her girl interested, get her to do anything she wanted, because girls who love girls were always starved for attention. Carol knew what they wanted, and they surely knew too, but they played her games anyway. They gave her the power she so desperately wanted, and she gave them a little companionship. Harsh kisses and tongues clashing and hands slid into her girlfriend’s underwear when no one was looking their way. 

Strangely, it made the boys notice her, too. They saw who she was and wanted the power of being able to change her. But Carol wasn’t going to let herself be weak. She was powerful with a girl’s hand in her pants, and she liked it that way.

Her family knew, because Carol let them know. Whichever new girl she brought home, they would stare, and speak in hushed voices as Carol locked the bedroom door. But she was careful, methodical, and they were never caught, so there was never proof. Her family knew, but they never spoke of it. Her parents made sure to treat her with as little respect as they could allow themselves to, and her sisters mostly ignored it.

Barb tried to use it against her, exactly once. Carol, sat on her bed, asked Barb to take her boyfriend somewhere else for once because she wanted to study, and moments later they were both screaming.

“At least I have a boyfriend, Carol,” her sister shouted. “At least I’m not a fuckin’ _dyke_  like you!”

Anger flashed white-hot inside her, and Carol tried her hardest to rip her sister’s wretched skin from her bones. Two girls, clawing at each other like wild cats, even as their parents separated them. Carol was punished, Barb was not. But a week later, Barb found her books of piano music ripped to shreds.

It didn’t stop when she went to prison. Criminals were much the same as the stupid, needy girls she knew from the outside, Carol realised. It was harder to find what would give her the power she needed, but not impossible. She was used to working with what she was given, after all. Her drab prison uniform came with heavy boots, and she could roll her sleeves, leave a few buttons undone, light up a cigarette, and then they all knew who she was.  _What_  she was. She learned that the girls in prison were even easier than on the outside. The touch starvation that came as a result of harsh rules made her job so much easier. They all came to her for drugs, and it didn’t take her long to work out which girls she could have. Who she could drag into a supply closet, pressing close to feel the warmth of a girl’s body, just for a few minutes. A dyke is a dyke, after all, whether she’s wearing jeans or a navy uniform. 

Eventually she found a girl who was different. She resisted Carol’s advances, for a while, but her presence was so  _intoxicating_  that Carol couldn’t make herself stop. She was giddy, drunk on it. She trusted Frieda, more than she had ever let herself trust in her life, and Carol had almost allowed herself to become as needy as the girls she usually chased when Frieda gave her something back. Her secret corner of the library was perfect - for the drugs, of course, but also for when Frieda admitted to Carol that she  _wanted,_ too. 

Frieda was angry, she was fierce and raw and honest and everything that Carol loved. What Frieda gave her was so good, she didn’t even notice as everything was crashing down around her.

The stab of betrayal was like shards of ice in her flesh. All the anger she had felt before had been hot, orange and red and all the colours of fire, burning her up as she flew too close to the sun. This time was different. It spread through her veins like fissures over a frozen pond, and Carol knew that she would never be warm again until she had her revenge. Love wasn’t important any more. Only hate would keep her warm. 

**Author's Note:**

> Carol seemed like a very obviously lesbian character to me right from the beginning, so this was supposed to be just about her experiences & discovering herself as a young lesbian but i guess frieda just had to be in there too. idk why because i've never liked her but here we are ! if you wanna come and talk about how carol is very much a lesbian im at carcldenning on tumblr :)


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